Scientists have discovered that milk consumption was an important cultural adaptation of the ancient inhabitants of the Tibetan Plateau, enabling them to survive in one of the harshest places on earth. Research published in the journal Science Advances.
Natural selection allowed early Tibetans to better adapt to the thin air of the highlands, but finding enough food in the resource-poor highlands remained a challenge.
In a new study, scientists analyzed the composition of protein molecules in the teeth of 40 ancient people from 15 different mountain regions. The authors found signs of drinking milk in many teeth.
The ancient Tibetans who drank milk lived in areas above 3700 m above sea level. Almost half of the tooth samples were found at an altitude of 4000 m above sea level. Scientists’ data show that dairy farming arose in Tibet at least 3.5 thousand years ago.
Dairy products were consumed by various groups of the population, including men and women, adults and children, and aristocrats and peasants. This means that dairy products were an important component of the diet of ancient people on the Tibetan Plateau.
“All traces of milk consumption were obtained from ancient peoples in the western and northern steppes, where it was extremely difficult to grow crops. “But we couldn’t find milk protein in the south-central and southeast valleys, where there is more farmland.”
Tibetans used goat, sheep and possibly yaks milk. The authors believe that dairy farming was critical to the survival of Tibet’s ancient inhabitants.